The 11 students from the UC Irvine Muslim Student Union who interrupted Israeli ambassador to the US Michael Oren‘s 2010 on-campus speech will be arraigned in front of a grand jury on Friday, March 11. They face up to 6 months in prison. We’ll post updates as soon as we hear anything. Our comrades over at Occupy UCI should have updates as well.

It goes without saying that this case has no basis whatsoever and is clearly an instance of politically motivated prosecution. The Orange County DA is seriously going to try these students for conspiracy due to some relatively benign civil disobedience? And check out how it’s being framed. Susan Schroeder, chief of staff to the DA, had this to say:

I think it’s kind of silly to think we’re targeting a group based upon their religion when they targeted the speaker based upon his religion.

And there you have it. Apparently this is no longer about the means of intervention, but instead about representing legitimate criticism of Israeli foreign and domestic policy as anti-Semitism. Absolutely disgusting, though we can’t say we’re surprised. For background information, check out the following video put together by Mother Jones:

We also urge you to sign a petition demanding that all charges be dropped immediately and unconditionally here. Hands off student protesters! Criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitic; it’s anti-colonial!